Chapter Text
Nessus.
Now
Cayde-6.
It’d been a while since he’d been back to Nessus, after the war, but he’d always meant to. Besides being swarmed with Vex and Fallen, the planet was gorgeous, with pinkish-red leaves blanketing the ground, and forming a canopy up above. The trees were huge, taller than anything he remembered from earth, with a turquoise mist wafting around his legs that provided a beautiful contrast. The gold of the rocks where the vex had begun terraforming highlighted the area, and when the sun up above hit it, everywhere gained a golden tint.
In short, he loved it here. Even with the local enemies, they never posed him much of a threat unless he stumbled into a big group, but even then he came out pretty unscathed. He loved to investigate, doing random quests Failsafe asked him to do, usually finding a convey and letting his ghost hack it, or even just bringing some food, sitting on the edge of a golden cliff and watching the white waterfalls. Sometimes he brought a book Ikora had leant him, and swung his legs while reading.
This time was different though. After Mercury had been quarantined, and every civilian and guardian pulled from the planet, guardians had been going to Nessus in storm, taking down vex left and right, so the paradise planet was less calm than before. The sounds of wind and rushing rivers were replaced by gunfire and robot screeches. Not a good atmosphere to read a book in.
And him? He wasn’t supposed to leave the tower, being the Hunter Vanguard, but he needed a break from all the paperwork. Ace weighed heavy at his side, and he figured he’d be pretty safe with the sheer amount of guardians that went to the place regularly, so Zavala couldn’t complain. Just don’t mess with the teleporters. He learnt that the first time he came here.
He broke the atmosphere quickly, when his comms beeped. Failsafe was calling him. He pressed the button to answer, and spoke, “Failsafe, hey. What’s up?”
It was the… more robotic Failsafe, not her slightly intimidating glitch. “Cayde unit. It is wonderful that I detected you entering orbit, it has been a while since you last came to Nessus. I have detected something rather anomalous in the Tangle quadrant of Nessus. I suggest you go take a look.”
“Shall do. Send me the coordinates?” His ghost beeped in his ear and he thanked Failsafe, then shut down comms. His ghost, Sundance, appeared next to him.
“The anomalous readings are in the Tangle, alright, but they’re small and faint. No vex or fallen tech, not red legion, either.”
He frowned. “Then whatever it is, we get in, kill it or scan it, and Zavala never has to know. Easy.”
“You realise he probably knows already, right?”
“Let’s, uh, not think about that. The thought of Mr. Angry Titan kinda scares me.”
They landed at Artifact’s Edge, the closest safe landing zone, and rode the Sparrow the rest of the way, pink trees and golden rocks zipping by. There were a couple of vex on the way there, but he dispatched them with relative ease. Once at the site of the readings, just at the base of one of the powerful trees, with branches as thick as his body was long, he pulled out Sundance and looked around.
The cliff overlooked the radiolarian falls, the liquid an eerie cream with sparks flying from it. In the Nessus summer, the falls were bathed with golden light, and in the autumn, red leaves flowed into it like a stream of human blood. He sighed. It’d been a while since Nessus had an autumn.
“Cayde,” his ghost called, and he turned. She was half hidden underneath a massive, thick root, but her light shone in the shadows. He hopped over some of the roots, before stopping. Sundance was hovering just over a dead ghost. One he recognised.
About a year ago, just before the Vanguard quarantined Mercury, they’d sent one last scouting team to see what had been killing guardians. Two hunters, a Titan, and a Warlock, he remembered they called themselves ‘Fireteam Horizon’. He remembered their names. Ara, Elias Storm, Jira Valuknov, and Cara-3. They’d - he'd - sent them to Mercury, on strict orders to retreat if the vex saw them, and they had gone missing, presumed dead. Just like 1,482 other Guardians.
The ghost’s name was Seaghost, a light green ghost with blue markings, which belonged to one of his hunters. Elias Storm, an excellent hunter, sniper and one of the sneakiest hunters Cayde had trained. He was also a known pickpocket and Cayde usually had to bail him out of trouble when he’d gotten onto the wrong side of Lord Shaxx or another guardian. Elias was under the command of his fireteam leader, Ara, another hunter who hadn’t chosen or found a last name for herself. She was cheerful but calm, for a hunter, and Cayde had often been surprised that she wasn’t a warlock, considering how she loved to learn. She was more of the hands-on learner, though. Always had been.
Cayde sat heavily on a root, Eclipse held in his hand as the other cradled his head. Sundance floated quietly, watching him. “Is there anything you can do for her?” He asked, and his ghost shook her body. “OK. Well, we’re taking Eclipse back with us. Maybe Ikora can do something for her.”
His comms beeped. Failsafe again. “You have found the anomalous object, I presume?” She said, always sounding overly cheery.
“Yeah. It’s one of my Hunter’s dead ghosts. They disappeared on…” It clicked. “They disappeared on Mercury, two years ago. So how the hell is Eclipse here?” He stood up, horrified, theories forming in his head. He needed to call someone, he needed to see if there were any more ghosts, he… he couldn’t think of a plan with all these thoughts. Ara, Elias, their team. How did they get here?
“Failsafe, are there any more readings like this one?”
“Scanning,” she grew quiet and Cayde tapped his foot, Seaghost still safe in his hand. Sundance floated near his left elbow, scanning the other ghost, who he now realised was surprisingly intact. No signs of damage on the shell, nor on the eye inside. He chuckled lowly, all these mysteries now brought up by something so small and fragile. “Yes, there is one more anomalous reading close to you. Coordinates are as follows.”
He was on his sparrow immediately, rocketing off the cliff, banging up his ride a bit with the landing, but nevertheless he was there in a few minutes. A smaller cave, half hidden by the golden rocks, covered by a few goblins, which were easily dispatched. He shot the harpy inside, not even giving it a chance to spin it’s purple tentacles out, never mind shooting at him. Instead it was a pile of brassy metal chunks on the floor. A few seconds and no more vex, and he pulled Sundance back out. “Failsafe, keep an eye out, call me if anythin' starts trying to kill us. Sundance, anythin'?”
“Just another ghost, boss. Jira Valuknov’s ghost. Another member of Fireteam Horizon. How did they get here?” Sundance turned to Cayde once they found the ghost, a small, camouflage green ghost, just as dull as Elias’s. Just as absent of light. Just as perfectly intact.
“Hell if I know,” he breathed, picking up the ghost and storing it carefully away. “But I think we need to go to where this started.”
“You want to - but Mercury is quarantined! Not even Osiris and his followers are allowed back!” His ghost twirled up until she was eye level with him, and he batted her gently away as he started heading out. She called after him. “We need to call the rest of the vanguard, or at least notify someone that we’re heading to Mercury!”
He grinned at that. “Sundance, you know exactly what they’d say, Blue especially!” He crossed his arms and pushed up his chest. “‘Cayde, you know you’re not allowed to leave. You have to be responsible for your hunters that are left. You have to stay and do paperwork’ - do you know just how demoralising that is? I’m a Hunter!” He huffed, and Sundance made a motion to roll her eye. “I love the dude, would and could kill for him, but he can act like a real stick up the ass sometimes. He doesn’t understand this is my way of looking out for my hunters.” His grip on Ace tightened, and he narrowed his eyes, staring off into the distance. “By putting a bullet in the brain of who or what has been killing them.”
Sundance was quiet, as he stood away from her, calming himself. Every day, he remembered all the times he’d had to send fireteams into Mercury, for one thing or another. Originally, the disappearances had been limited to just one ravine, until Guardians started disappearing in the Infinite Forest, even one team who went into the teleporter to talk with Brother Vance just up and disappeared off the face of the earth. He’d had to listen as their comms went quiet and their beacons disappeared. He’d watched every time as they scanned for their ghosts, only to find bullet casings and dead vex. He’d had to go through mourning every time a squad just lost comms and never regained them.
Cayde was closer with his guardians than Zavala and Ikora. Sure, he’d never got the whole ‘mentoring’ thing - that was where Ikora shone, she was an excellent teacher - but he was there when something went wrong. He was always there if someone in their team died and a guardian was broken. His hunters were a tight knit community, not quite familial - though some did get that close - but they all looked after each other all the same. He was the worst, as well, always checking up on a certain hunter if they ever lost contact for more than a month, unless he wasn’t allowed to. Usually a quick call, were they alive? Did they need anything? They rarely did, but he always offered help.
So it always hurt when someone he knew died. Probably why the other two vanguards kept their stoicism around their guardians, why they kept them at an arms length. So they didn’t get attached, and weren’t affected when their guardians died. However Cayde was seriously affected when hunters started disappearing, everyone in the Tower noticed it. More calls to hunters on missions, checking in. More sneaking out, talking to guardians. More nights alone in the Hangar, sat on the railings, dangling his legs over the side, watching the city go by.
Thinking. Always thinking. He could be calm, in those moments alone. He could be sad. He could relax, and watch the world go on.
Take a breath.
Stop thinking of them.
He held Ace in his hand, feeling the worn grooves and nicks of gunfire, the years of use that had affected the sidearm. Closing his eyes, he focussed on the gentle curves of the gun, the hard edges and loose curves. Calmer, he opened his eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered.
His ghost disappeared with a humph and spoke in his ear. “It’s OK. What do we do with the dead ghosts?”
He started walking to the entrance. “As much as I hate to say it, you’re right. Ikora might know something, or be able to do something with them. Can you store them?” They disappeared with a whumpf.
Suddenly, something angry, aggressive and metallic slammed into him, and he whacked against the wall. So much for keeping an eye out. “Failsafe, what the hell-” He was met with static and realised. Somehow, his comms were down. He wasn’t that deep into Nessus, nor had he seen anything that would jam comms, so why…
His thoughts stopped as he rolled up, gun in hand, and was met with the barrel of a Fallen gun. But Fallen barely made it here, killed off or captured by the vex. He looked up.
A young woman, wearing a fallen cloak around her head held the gun to his head, calm and dangerous. From the glimpses of dark brown eyes and pale skin, he could tell she was human. She was shorter than him, but the hostility in her eyes showed her to equal him. She wore a mix of what looked like guardian hunter armour and Fallen purples that was mended to the cloak around her head. Thick gloves were on her hands, covered in dirt and what looked like blood, like pretty much everything she wore. She looked dirty, like she hadn’t had a bath in a while, but also like she belonged here. The grease in the locks of hair that peeked out from her head wrap, as well as the Fallen gun in her hand showed that she’d been out here a while. She was a survivor of something . The gun in her hand and knife at her belt showed she was well armed. That, and the Hobgoblin just a few metres from him - the thing that had thrown him against the wall. He blinked at her.
“Shoot my hobgoblin, and I
will
put a bullet in your head. Got it?”